China eased Covid rules to spur economic growth, but US companies still plot manufacturing shifts
- Beijing’s dramatic policy shift does little to deter foreign corporations from looking to diversify their production beyond the world’s No 2 economy
- ‘They want out of China because they do not believe China is any longer good for business’, says lawyer advising American companies
The president of Creative Packaging Solutions, headquartered in New Jersey, had to contend with the delays resulting from extended lockdowns across China.
The company, which commissions the production of packaging material to multiple countries including China, plans to maintain its operations with the Chinese factories it has worked with over the years. Lefferts hoped the abrupt changes in China’s Covid-19 protocols would mean fewer production and shipping disruptions for her company’s local partners.
“We will continue to do business with China as long as the factories and the people [in China] still want to do business with US companies,” she said.
But in the longer term, a raging debate over global supply-chain security, set amid strong and bipartisan anti-China sentiment in Washington, casts doubt over how much of a company’s operations can remain in China.
Lefferts acknowledged that if her company found that a “particular item can be produced somewhere else to the same standards, to the same quality, in the same amount of time, and somewhat to the same cost, we may consider moving it”.
